Is Mario a generic character?

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

A good studio could probably come up with something very creative and beautiful that doesn't require Mario to talk, though it'd be very hard, but that's really not Illumination's.... style. They favor marketing over the actual substance of the movie.

I'd be a bit more optimistic if I were you. Their movies aren't the worst ever. From what I know, only one of them has been received horribly.

The minions movie, hop, the lorax and the despicable me sequels are all pretty bad. Despicable me 1, secret life of pets and sing were not awful but they're definitely not good either which is why I doubt they'll pull off anything unexpectedly amazing with this movie. Mario is hard to make all that interesting in movie form so they'd have to do something unconventional, but all their films are extremely conventional and take almost no risks. If they do it'd be a first for them, and I'd be very happy. I just don't think it's likely given their mediocre to poor track record.